ICC 4 IT Blog

ICC is pleased to announce that we have just secured a 24 hour contract for one of Europe’s largest Telecommunications companies, offering full support for their Alphaserver GS1280 platform, these machine’s are located oversea’s and has enabled us to expand our presence further into Europe outside of the British Isle’s. Original tenders for the contract took place in early 2006, and we were awarded the contract over another three major service provider’s. “obtaining this contract once more adds confidence to exisiting and future clients, who are looking for alternative young vibrant support organisations” commented MD Leon Wheeler.

Over the last 3 months ICC commissioned an independent market research company to carry out a survey to over 25,000 companies from large corporates to SME’s including existing clients to see what customers looked for in their IT supplier. This survey was carried out in order for us to review our products and services to ensure we were still meeting customers expectations. After obtaining all the information from our customers we are pleased to be able to release the results from this survey that shows that 92% of all customers new and old find that dealing with ICC meets and exceeds all there requirements over other Suppliers.

To see the full survey results please click here.

HP enhances key attributes of OpenVMS with version 8.3 supporting the latest line of HP Integrity servers and AlphaServer systems. Now, you can achieve higher levels of performance and price/performance.

OpenVMS version 8.3 delivers even greater flexibility and investment protection along with lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and additional virtualization capabilities for HP Integrity servers. New clustering and data-shadowing functions further increase performance levels in disaster-tolerant environments, and additional security capabilities enhance the OpenVMS reputation for secure, rapid application delivery.

With OpenVMS version 8.3, you can choose to deploy HP Integrity servers as your business needs require. The mixed architecture clusters of Integrity servers and AlphaServer systems are fully supported, promoting the integration of HP Integrity servers into an OpenVMS environment at the pace directed by your business needs.

Licensing and service plans for OpenVMS on HP Integrity servers offer reduced complexity, increased cost-effectiveness, and greater flexibility. OpenVMS version 8.3 also supports the full line of HP AlphaServer systems.

Today, more than 1,000 applications are, or will soon be, available on OpenVMS on HP Integrity servers. And the number of available applications is continually growing. The enthusiastic base of HP OpenVMS partners are ready to help you deploy the applications that keep your business running smoothly.

HP OpenVMS is the operating environment of choice for many of the world’s most demanding enterprises because it delivers these no-compromise attributes every day, year after year:

• Up to 100% application availability
• Unyielding security
• Robust disaster tolerance
• Scalability to millions of users
• Steadfast reliability
• Ease of management
• Exceptional price/performance

Hewlett-Packlard has introduced a new version of the HP-UX 11i operating system and a new range of HP Integrity servers to help make mission-critical virtualisation practical for businesses of all sizes.

The latest release of HP’s Unix operating environment, HP-UX 11i v3, makes virtualisation easier to deploy and delivers mission-critical virtualisation by combining virtualisation and mainframe-class availability, said HP. Also, with HP-UX 11i v3, important applications, including business intelligence and datawarehousing, are now simpler to secure and manage.

Additionally, HP has strengthened its HP Integrity server line-up with a model for BladeSystem c-Class environments and a new rack-optimised unit, the Integrity rx2660 entry-class server.
The HP Integrity BL860c Server Blade is the first Integrity model designed for the HP BladeSystem c-Class portfolio, HP’s new blade architecture. And the HP Integrity rx2660 is the lowest-priced Integrity rack-mount server and the most flexible and versatile unit in its Unix server class, said HP.

HP claimed the rx2660 beat similar entry-level offerings from Sun Microsystems on performance when it came to Java application and Java business workloads.
A base configuration of the HP Integrity BL860c Server Blade has a starting US list price of $3,827 (£2,015) and is expected to begin shipping in March. A base configuration of the HP Integrity rx2660 entry-class server has a starting US list price of $4,931 (£2,600) and is shipping now.

ICC are pleased to announce that we are now authorised resellers of SUMO thin client products.
Over the last few years we have seen many of our clients moving away from the traditional “dumb terminal” and moving towards windows based terminals. It was therefore necessary for us to choose a product that we believe was a suitable alternative to the terminal products we had sold in the past and after reviewing what manufacturers were offering we have chosen to use SUMO as our preferred and approved product.
Please see our thin client page for more details of SUMO products

ICC is pleased to announce that they have secured yet another service contract for one of the worlds largest pharmaceutical research companies namely Aptuit at their Edinburgh based site. The service support contract chosen by Aptuit covers their development Alphaserver Cluster.

ICC will be supporting Aptuit 24 hours a day 365 days a year with a 4 hour response level. “securing this contract once again adds another high profile client to our ever increasing support client list, our heavy investment into this area of our business with personnel and in-house facilities, ensures that any future customer, or current customer can be assured they are receiving market leading support without the the usual heavy costs associated with the manufacturers maintenance agreement that so many companies choose to adopt”

“At ICC we are trying to re-educate clients to realise that sticking with the manufacturers for support is not always the most reliable and cost effective way to run their I. T. platform, as companies have realised over the last few years that it is not always the best option to buy equipment direct from the manufacturer, we are confident that with the right attributed and procedures in place we can steer our clients in the direction of using our services, and increasing their cover but also reducing their annual costs”

The deadline for AlphaServer final orders is October 27, 2006 with HP Options and upgrades will be available for another year past that date, until November 2, 2007. HP wants every AlphaServer customer to have opportunity to make AlphaServer system final orders, if it’s appropriate.

HP recommends - for your AlphaServer environments
Generally, AlphaServer customers who plan to continue running their AlphaServer environments should refresh their plans to:
. Update to current operating environment versions where it’s practical, and cluster where 2 or more machines are running critical workloads, for optimal ROI.
. Consider AlphaServer GS1280 - a customer favourite for consolidation. Consolidation alone may dramatically improve the ROI for workloads distributed across multi-system AlphaServer environments.

Click here to view HP AlphaServer’s evolution/roadmap

HP OpenVMS v8.2 is a new release for both HP Integrity servers and AlphaServer systems. This new OpenVMS version enhances its key properties of security, scalability, availability, performance, and interoperability with UNIX.

The ability to deploy various generations of AlphaServer technology while incorporating Integrity servers offers bottom-line investment protection. The combination of HP Integrity servers and AlphaServer systems can enhance your computing environments by capitalizing on the economies of an industry-standard architecture while adding value through HP innovation.

You now have the choice of staying with the AlphaServer platform for years to come, or moving to Integrity servers. Your application investments are protected because the vast majority of Alpha-based OpenVMS applications need only be recompiled, relinked, and tested in order to run on Integrity servers. Moreover, mixed architecture clusters of HP Integrity servers and AlphaServer systems is fully supported, promoting the incorporation of Integrity servers into an OpenVMS environment when you determine it should be done.

OpenVMS v8.2 is now available for HP Integrity rx4640-8, rx2620-2, and rx1620-2 servers as well as for the entire family of AlphaServer systems. OpenVMS will be available on the full line of entry-level, mid-range, and high-end Integrity servers, including the HP Superdome Server, by the first half of 2006.

ICC has won the maintenance agreement with a large county police constabulary, covering their administration systems, which operate on Compaq AlphaServers running Tru64 Unix. The contract covers their systems 24 hours a day, 365 days per year on a 4 hour response.

“Obtaining this contract once again adds confidence and commitment from ICC on the service level agreement that has been chosen by our client, strengthening our out of hours support services. This will in turn allow us to tender for other 24 hour contracts because of having the facilities and personnel in place.”

ICC has recently purchased new premises to cope with the increase in sales and services.

“We were looking to relocate to larger premises once more in order to be able to run the service side of the business as more of an individual company separate to the hardware sales side of the business. We are pleased to announce that we have just purchased new premises with floor space of over 20,000 sq ft. This will be split between the two sides of the business so that we can run these independently. The beauty in doing this is that unlike most maintenance companies who have contract agreements in place, they then have to “spare up” on certain products in order to meet the SLA (service level agreement). In having the two companies co-existing in the same building, we are confident that with any contract we take on, we will always be able to meet the SLA because of our immense stockholding. Every part that needs to be exchanged will be available from stock for immediate despatch with one of our engineers 99.9% of the time. This we know from supplying other TPM organisations, is not always the case, which undoubtedly leaves the customer at risk. This is what we believe will put us one step ahead of other third party maintenance organisations.”

Completion of the move is expected by mid 2006.